How many levels in your dungeon?

[HellHound]

One of the biggest I ever *played* in was only 1 level... and 44 sheets of graph paper.

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Nowadays, when I do a dungeon, they are pretty small. 4-10 rooms on average.

The last one the players were in was a 3 or 4 room affair really, but took three sessions to finish.

Of course, every now and then I pull out a biggie to get the "Mines of Moria" effect. I took module B1 and added two new sections to level 1 (extended the forges to the west of the map, and added a larger living area to the east), it is a nice big dungeon now, run by a dragon and his two draegloth 'friends', and there are a bunch of golbins living in the west end who are allowed to remain because they are a useful intruder alert system (they make a lot of noise when killed).

 

[Evilhalfling]

Most of my dungeons have 1-2 levels - and are normally inhabited by 1 main monster type with a few guard animals or slave beasts. I had a 5 level dungeon built by ratmen, it was a honeycomb of up and down passages and vertical shafts - It was inhabited by lets see: ratmen, more ratmen and a flesh golem built out of ratmen parts. It had 2-8 rooms per level and no doors until the 4th level down.

The most recent was a kaorti cyst with 2 levels, and semi-permeable membranes instead of doors, each one 10' wide. The Kaorti could open viewslits, or retract them completely as a full round action, the party, eventually just destroyed the membranes instead of going through them.

Not that I dont love the modual Greyhawk Ruins WGR1, 3 towers - each has 6-9 levels one has a working ecology with a two tribes of orcs/orgillions/orgres creating gold items and moving them up to the upper levels as adventurer lures. and another with 3 warring species watched and balanced by midlevel wizards.

 

[Dogbrain]

How many levels would you put in a dungeon?

Well, let's see. There would be three levels above ground, one for the jailer and his servants, two others for those prisoners who can afford such accomodations and their servants. Then there would be one level mostly below ground, where those who couldn't afford better upkeep would be held.

 

[Evilhalfling]

The reason I have many small dungeons in my world is a logical one. In a fantasy world a small dungeon is one of the best fortresses -
Pros -
1. No Large/Huge dragons
2. Hallway size limits the size of possible marauding monsters.
3. Concealment, above ground complexes are easy to spot by the many flying fantasy creatures.
4 Limited avanues of attack - you can pretty much guarantee that the first 2-4 rooms in a dungeon will be attacked first, you can use them to stall while the rest of the lair arms and response to the threat.
Cons-
A. none of the above applies to attacks by tunneling monsters or high magic adventurers.
B. expense - building up is cheaper. by a factor of 2-3 for the first level, increasing for each deeper level.
This serves to limit the depth. All single use dungeons should have an escape tunnel or two, which can be used to evacuate noncoms and survivors if the lair's main warriors are slain. The monsters know that they should leave most of thier treasure to reduce the chance of persuit. Humanoids should react to adventures like roving vikings, fight some then flee, come back to the home later and rebuild.

 

[rogueattorney]

For my current campaign, I have prepared a fairly small three level dungeon, and am preparing two fairly epic seven level dungeons, one of which has been in the making for about 10 years. I like big dungeons.

R.A.

 

[Random Goblin]

I started to plan this huge, twenty-level dungeon that spiralled down around a gigantic shaft pierced through the earth by an ancient meteor.

But my players aren't really into dungeon crawls, especially really long ones, so I never did more than one level. I think now I'm going to go back and make it anyway, just to say I did.

 

[Arnwyn]

Nowadays I stick with one or two levels, never more than a single 8.5 x 11 sheet of graph paper. Come to think of it, even in my youth my dungeons were generally only one or two levels - but they did sprawl to the size of a poster map for each level (complete with small lakes, islands, towns...). Good times. Brutal to detail (even back then), but fun as hell when finally complete.

Indeed, the wizards were mad and paranoid. It's my favorite cliche (even to this day).

 

[Desdichado]

However, did real life dungeons ever go 9 or more levels down? (Besides the Pentagon and a few nuclear fall out shelters)

Sorry, that sentence does not compute. Real life dungeons were usually 1 level, and all that they had were holding cells and maybe a torture chamber. The Pentagon is not a dungeon, it's an office building.

 

[Hand of Evil]

How many levels would you put in a dungeon?

However, did real life dungeons ever go 9 or more levels down? (Besides the Pentagon and a few nuclear fall out shelters)

What about fantasy novels? Do any of the novels have dungeons that go 9 + levels into the ground (Moria maybe).

See my post on salt mine: http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=93746

How insane and paranoid are the mad wizard dungeon designers that delve these many levels deep into the ground?

Ever see the PC game Dungeon Keeper? It only created a single level but I have used its concept to explain dungeons in a campiagn world - An outsider places a part of itself into the world, this is the dungeon heart, from this he starts to expand the dungeon outward, this work give this outsider more and more power. Creatures join up and start gathering sacrifices, souls and blood to provide power, which when reached allows the outsider to cross over.

 

[Someone]

Sorry, that sentence does not compute. Real life dungeons were usually 1 level, and all that they had were holding cells and maybe a torture chamber. The Pentagon is not a dungeon, it's an office building.

But it would qualify as D&D dungeon, which has little do to with jails. My own city has (had) dungeons that had to be closed because they were large enough to be lost in it.